by Tham Cheng-E
At last the discs released their grip and Arthur, in a sickened grimace, examined his raw fingertips against the pale daylight.
Thaddeus took his hands and applied little swabs of translucent material to the blistering wounds. “Keep them on for a few minutes.”
It’ll take more than a few minutes. Arthur stared at him, aghast. “What the devil is this?”
“New fingerprints.” Thaddeus punched a few invisible keys on the screen and the device whined down to silence. He snapped the briefcase shut. “We’ll have to do a little splicing to your passport.”
“Passport? I didn’t give you any passport.”
“You are going to London.”
Arthur shot him an incredulous look. “When?”
“In a couple of days.” The man stowed the briefcase under the seat. “For what you did it is better to hide out a few years, until the investigation concludes and things settle a bit.”
“Wait, I don’t get it. What if I don’t want your help?”
“We’d gladly leave you alone if you were in control,” said Thaddeus. “But now you seem to be screwing up rather badly.”
He snatched up Arthur’s hands and began ripping off the membranes, one piece after another. At first Arthur gaped and flinched, then it amazed him to see that the wounds did not look as bad as when they had first come off the stove.
Out of nowhere, a little red book bearing the embossed, golden coat of arms with two tigers appeared. With Arthur’s right palm and wrist locked in his grip, Thaddeus deftly pushed Arthur’s thumb into an inkpad, flipped to a page, and made a print at the bottom of it. In his free hand a fountain pen appeared, its cap already unscrewed. He handed it to Arthur and pointed at a spot above the thumbprint.
“Sign here.”
Arthur complied, and Thaddeus released his wrist and clamped the passport shut with a triumphant little smirk.
The car pulled over behind an Australian Trade and Commission station wagon and Helio put up the handbrake. Arthur had not realise how far they had travelled, but they were in front of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank building at the east end of Orchard Road.
A lean, swarthy man passed in front of the Chrysler, briefly peering through the windscreen at its passengers. Helio looked away, and so did Thaddeus. Arthur met his gaze: it burned with tension, as though the man were anticipating something tremendous and imminent. The man loped away, turned back once more to glance at Arthur, before nimbly vanishing across the street amid falling rain and oncoming traffic.
“Curious people,” Helio muttered at the rear view mirror.
Thaddeus gave a quick laugh. “It’s the car, Helio. We should use a less expensive one next time.” He turned to Arthur and waved the red passport in his face. “We’ll hold this for now. Meanwhile keep your lips sealed and we’ll contact you in the morning.”
That’s it? Arthur stared at him. He needed more answers. His gaze flitted pleadingly over to Helio at the driver’s seat. The only response was a desultory smile in the rear-view mirror.
“I…” Arthur suddenly had trouble with speech. “I can’t go alone.”
Thaddeus reached over and opened the door on Arthur’s side. The roar of the rain grew loud. “I’m afraid you’re very much alone in this, Mr Lock. The gallows remain a very real possibility.”
Still, Arthur hesitated. Did he expect them to get Poppy and Hannah passports and sneak them out like exotic pets? Besides, Hannah had been missing for months. Or she could be behind all this. There was no telling…
“Please.” Thaddeus gestured at the door.
Arthur stepped out onto the sidewalk and scurried under the covered walkway before the rain could drench him. Dolefully he watched the black Chrysler pull away and merge into the flowing motor traffic. He looked around as if aware for the first time of his surroundings and, with a lugubrious sigh, accepted all that would befall him. I am told to go where I do not want to go, to live a life I know nothing of. I am endowed with years of a lowly existence whose purpose I do not know, and by day I bleed memories.
Just across the road a row of shophouses housed motorcar showrooms. They would offer a sheltered route back to the ice cream parlour, if only Arthur could get across to them. He stepped into the rain and passed behind a red Volvo coupé.
Flash.
The right side of Arthur’s vision erupted in white just before it went dark. For an instant gravity abandoned him. His back stung with the pain of a thousand needles that came with a shockwave. The left side of his body hit something hard and his hands touched wet asphalt. He lost all sensation in his right arm. He heard nothing but an incessant, hollow roar that sounded like winds bellowing through a cave. His vision alternated in flashes of darkness and wan, smoky daylight.
The burrs of something broken ground against his back. His wounded sight drew slowly into focus. A man writhed on the ground near him, his face studded with crystalline shards. Blood dripped from the lacerations in slick, dark strands.
Amid a host of muffled noises came the screech of tires, and then Helio filled Arthur’s sights, saying something about how miraculous it was that the coupé had been between him and the blast. A pair of strong arms lifted him and dragged him over a distance, his bare heels scraping the asphalt. He was back in the Chrysler, his eyes stinging with blood. Hands ran across his brow, mollifying his brutalised senses. Something hissed and stung the side of his neck.
“The law of a demented world as old as Creation itself.” Arthur heard someone say before he lapsed into unconsciousness. “Murphy merely attached his name to it.”
/ / /
Poppy sat by the store window with his second cup of half-eaten ice-cream. The rain had subsided to a drizzle, the air was humid and the store window, chilled by the store’s air-conditioning, misted up from the bottom. Poppy earnestly tracked each passer-by along the sheltered five-foot way, expecting that at any time one of them would turn out to be Arthur.
He pried open the lid of his biscuit tin with podgy fingers and took an inventory of its contents. Little stringed trinkets of plastic beads, a faux jade necklace, a brown rubber ball, a peeling wooden top, some old coins and a monochromatic photograph of Arthur seated in an eatery with himself perched on Arthur’s lap.
Then a thought crossed his simple mind: Arthur would probably return only if he finished the third cup of ice-cream he was promised. He replaced the lid of his biscuit tin, picked up the teaspoon and fed himself a scoop of his melted ice-cream. Then he took another, and another, all the while scanning the passing crowds and merrily kicking his slippered feet over the edge of his chair.
18
LEGACIES
LANDON AND JOHN sit on black granite benches and watch the rippling bay in the shade of crepe myrtle trees. Landon feels out of place when couples are occupying most of the other benches and it doesn’t help that John is a far bigger man than he is. Just as his stomach reels with its first hunger pangs, John fishes two packets of food from his backpack and hands him one of them.
“Taco?” he says. “It’s almost dinnertime.”
Landon seizes one packet. “Where’d you get them?”
“Before the museum. About two hours old. It’s soggy but still good.”
In his hunger Landon bites off an entire third of the taco in one mouthful. When they finish, John hands Landon a caramel-nut bar.
“You eat junk all the time?”
“When I’m on the move. It’s a habit.”
Landon nibbles on the bar and broods. “I don’t understand. Why me?”
“Chronomorphs are safe as long as they stay hidden,” John says. “But not many of you are adept at that.” He pauses, chewing on his candy and staring at the water. “Everyone knows you’re the thief who stole that woman’s IC for the birth registration.”
Hot shame creeps up Landon’s neck.
“You compromise yourself, you compromise the Serum.” John adds. “CODEX opened a file on you and here I am. It’s a damn shame.”
&nbs
p; “Thing’s a curse.” Landon muses bitterly. “Upends my life and empties it.”
“For some Chronomorphs it’s the price to pay,” John says. “The Serum was meant to function as a black box for those seeking the Unknown, but it ended up offering unexpected gifts. The absence of human senescence is a consistent one. Some obtained abilities they never had. Others, like you, got the downsides like amnesia.”
Landon shakes his head. “Had to receive the wrong end of the stick.”
“There are worse ones: insanity, death. Ever heard of running amok?”
“Vaguely.”
“Incidents happened frequently at the turn of the century. But Nobody but us knew why.”
“So we’re basically insane and amnesiac immortals?”
A shade of annoyance flits across John’s face, as if he has got the same question many times over. “You live a long life, but you can die,” he says. “That’s longevity, not immortality.”
“So how long does a typical—Chrono-thing live?”
“Don’t know.” John shrugs. “They always get killed off before we find that out.”
The words weigh upon him like anvils. They remind him of a frailty he has forgotten, and Death returns to his mind like an old friend. There were times when Death beckoned temptingly, after solitude had taken too much out of him. Now it terrifies him. It just isn’t the same when you know someone’s out to erase your existence because it isn’t worth snot.
An elegant, silver-haired lady wheels a very old man towards them. A younger Caucasian couple walks with her and three children run on ahead. Tourists—British or Australian from their accent. The wheelchair comes close and its occupant pivots his head on a withered neck; he has a blanket over his lap, and his stare reminds Landon of the dribbling patient at Loewen Lodge.
“You,” the old man struggles with a hoarse croak. Landon feels John go stiff with tension beside him.
“I know you.” He lifts a weak finger at Landon. “You got out, like I did.”
Landon, stupefied, tries to smile and his cheeks quiver at the effort.
The old man strains to look at the lady behind him. “He got out, he was with me.” The lady smiles apologetically and tries to wheel him away but his insistence keeps them in the same spot. “You got out, didn’t you?” The old man holds up the bony finger at Landon. “There were others who didn’t. And I told them…I told them—”
Age has disfigured him. It’s the brutal, honest truth. Landon stares at the puckered face before him and finds no recognition in it.
“Tell him you don’t know him.” John’s whisper drifts into range.
“I’m so sorry.” The lady addresses them both. “He’s ninety-three.”
Landon smiles at her. Beside him John adds, “Return a smile and leave it as that.”
“I—I was sorry for them, y’know?” Beneath thick, hawkish brows the old man’s eyes are stretched open like marbles. “It was the airconditioning… I was—”
The lady pats his chest. “Don’t bother the men, Papa.”
“You don’t know him, Landon,” John whispers.
The old man puts an arthritic hand to the wheel and stops it. “I didn’t—” He shifts, sucks in his saliva and reaches for Landon. “I remember their names—them all—”
John leans closer. “Tell him goodbye.”
“Oh for the crap of it!” Landon shrugs him off. “This isn’t the first damn time I’m getting this, okay? Stop telling me what to do!”
His outburst scares the group into scuttling off, their strides so brisk the kind lady had no time for a final apology. The old man strains to catch one final glance at Landon. An embarrassing antic of one too old—that’s what his family will think. And it’s a good thing because Landon knows it’s much more than that. He saw it in the eyes.
As they leave he rounds on John. “Who’d you think I am? I’m a bloody amnesiac! I don’t remember anyone!” A gust of wind sweeps hair across his forehead and a grain of sand into his eye. He stands, rubs it, braces his hands petulantly on his hips and stares at the skyline at the opposing bank. “I make coffee and I don’t hold friendships very well. Been doing that for—” He gives up and goes quiet for a moment. “Everyone who knew me once is either dead or dying.” He looks at John. “Do you know how that feels? Did you see the look on his face?”
“Sorry.”
“Doesn’t matter.” Landon shakes his head. “Truth is I don’t remember him anyway. Each time I try to build something it gets whittled down to nothing.”
“You knew any kids then?”
“I don’t know. I’ve had customers but they weren’t kids.” He sits back down and stares at the unfinished caramel bar in his hand. “I knew a bunch in their thirties and forties and they’d be antiques by now. Like him.” He nods in the direction where the old man went. “It was all touch and go—all the friendships. The better ones have written down.” Landon tongues a cheek in thought. “And the rest, they’re all gone now.”
The light of the setting sun sets the scattered clouds aflame. John considers the merit in Landon’s amnesia. He has no need of a masquerade, his perplexity about his past sins so genuine others would doubt themselves. Sometimes it is better to forget. The gift keeps him sane.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
“Is it time to go home yet?” Landon asks him.
John nods lightly. “About thirty minutes ago.”
“Then let’s go.”
/ / /
Clacton Road sits empty in blotches of yellow light from the street lamps. By the illumination of a porch light John eases the sedan into the driveway. Landon closes the gate and makes his way back to the house. The night is lively with the shrilling of katydids.
John goes round the house and explores the darkest part of the lawn. He returns to the porch when Landon turns on the living room lights. The kitchen catches his fancy; he surveys it thoroughly and takes a perfunctory account of the lavatory. “A police officer looked in not too long ago.” Landon tells him.
John starts carefully up the stairs. “Did you get his name?”
“Didn’t manage to remember,” he says. “Would you mind telling me what happened in my house when we’re out?”
John enters the study and examines the antiquated junk. “Infiltration.”
Landon sighs. “Care to elaborate?”
“Not now.” John moves over to the window—the one from which the spectre had spotted him. He pushes open the panes and the drapes sway in a weak draft of warm equatorial breeze. The casement shutters are swung wide against the exterior walls of the house, just as Landon had left it when he went to work. John looks down to the darkened street and at the spot where he had sat observing the house earlier that morning.
In the bedroom he finds nothing of interest in the poster bed. He surfs through the vintage bric-a-brac, looks over a few dusty bottles of cognac and stops at the sagging shelf where Landon keeps a selection of his journals.
Something catches John’s eye; from the shelf he picks out a journal that is slightly displaced. Its spine is unusually dustless, as if deliberately wiped clean. To an operative the implication couldn’t have been more flagrant.
Someone has left him a message.
“Would you mind turning on the lights in the other rooms?” he says to Landon, who is standing at the door restlessly picking at the bowl of a calabash pipe.
Grudgingly, Landon exits the room. Outside the corridor light comes on. In Landon’s absence, John slides out the leather-bound journal and flips to its first page. On it is written, in the calligraphic manner of a dip pen: 1859 to 1860.
He hears the flick of Bakelite switches in the last two rooms down the corridor, and without hesitation sends the journal spinning out of the bedroom window and into the shrubbery near the gate. He then makes a spurious but convincing attempt at scrutinising the red Mandarin gown through its poly-sheet when Landon returns.
“Found anything?” drawls Landon grumpily.
&n
bsp; “No,” says John. “Mind if I see the other rooms?”
“You don’t tell me much, do you?”
“It’s better to know less.”
“Hey, get your security company to bill me when all this is finished.” Landon follows him out of the room. “No free lunches, right?”
John doesn’t acknowledge the sarcasm. He marches on, room after room, window after window, scanning every corner of the space more keenly than a prospective buyer. Until at last he returns to the corridor, and with his fists on his hips, does a final survey of the lofty and mouldering vestibule of the old house. Then he asks for the deed to the house and takes pictures of it.
“Now for the important part.” He turns to Landon. “I don’t think you’re in too much danger yet, but neither are you completely out of it. If you aren’t one of the original Chronomorphs I need to know if you had connections to one who might have given you the Serum.”
“Long shot, but I’ll try.”
“Were you entrusted with keeping anything? An object, a property?”
“Funny you should ask.” Landon’s expression struggles to conceal surprise. “My home—it’s like an heirloom thing. I’m not allowed to sell it. I had it written down so I wouldn’t forget; it must be important.”
“Do you have any homes other than this?”
“Not as far as I know.”
John mutters a curse, then: “In time I might have to make arrangements for you to stay elsewhere.” He pulls out a chromium device and taps away on it. When he catches Landon looking at him he turns away.
“Doesn’t sound like a good thing,” Landon comments.
John stows the device in his pocket and takes two objects out of his bag. He hands one to Landon—a silver capsule that ejects an inch-long needle when twisted. “Use this if you get darted—”
“Darted?”
“It’s unlikely, but someone might attempt to trigger a cardiac arrest by darting you with a nano-infusion,” John explains. “In operative lingo it’s called tagging someone. You’d feel the sting, and once that happens push the capsule up your arm.”